Pray To Stay Dead

by Cole, Mason James

  “Okay,” she said.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I already did it.”

  “Did what?”

  She nodded toward Sam. “Stole a few facecloths from his bathroom.”

  Daniel laughed, and things were okay between them again. Maybe things wouldn’t stay okay between them for long, but they were okay between them for now, and that made her happy. Guy looked back with confusion on his face, and she stepped away from her brother.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Just patching things up with my idiot brother, is all.”

  “He is an idiot,” Guy said. “But that’s good.”

  They walked a bit more, and Colleen’s thighs and calves burned. The incline was gradual, but it was taking its toll on her underused leg muscles.

  “Where the hell are we going?” Richard asked, stopping to reach down and massage his right calf. Colleen wasn’t the only one feeling it.

  “Just a little more. I want to show you something.”

  A little further along, they came across the first of the doors: thick metal beasts with small glass windows inlaid with wire mesh, rust-spotted and stacked three or four thick and leaning against several of the young redwoods that made up this part of the forest.

  “What’s this about?” Daniel said, stepping up to one of the doors and touching the small window placed into the door at head height. Beneath the window, the number 17, now faded from exposure to the elements, had been painted. “These come from a prison or something?”

  “You’d think so,” Sam said. “I thought the same thing, too, but they’re just from a school. Dad got them cheap, but now they’re rotting out here.”

  “This what you wanted to show us, man?” Daniel said. “Some doors leaning against trees?”

  “No, no,” Sam said. “I mean, yeah, I wanted to show you this, but I really want to show you where I live.”

  “How far is it?”

  “Not much. And when we get there, we’ll tighten our wigs, okay? All of us.”

  “Okay,” Daniel said, sounding less annoyed.

  Kimberly looked back at Colleen and, eyebrows raised, mouthed the words: “Tighten our wigs?”

  Colleen pinched her thumb and forefinger together before her lips, sucking in her cheeks.

  “Oh, yeah,” Kimberly said. “Good.”

  The ground leveled out again, and three small cabins came into view, one in the center, at the end of the road, and one on either side of the path. There was a pick-up truck parked next to the cabin on the left.

  Colleen took Guy’s hand and stopped. Kimberly looked back at them, and Colleen waved them on.

  “We’ll catch up.”

  “What’s on your mind?” Guy asked, stroking her cheek.

  “I miss you,” she said, trying to gather together everything that was on her mind and say it in some way that made sense.

  “You want to rest here a little while and then hit the road?” Guy said.

  Colleen was momentarily confused, unsure if he meant here, in the middle of the road, or here, at Sam’s father’s place.

  “I don’t know,” She said, after realizing he’d meant the latter. “I don’t think so. I don’t like Sam, but I think we’re safe here for now.”

  “And then we’ll go home.”

  “Home,” she said, and just like that, she needed him. She needed his mouth on hers, his arms around her. She needed to touch him and to be touched by him, and she cursed her body for betraying her with its poorly-timed reliability. She had friends who didn’t let their periods stop them—they’d fuck while lying naked on the grass somewhere or they’d spread a beach towel on the bed, or something, but that wasn’t for her and it wasn’t for him. It hadn’t been for her before, anyhow, but now?

  In the face of what was happening, did it make sense that she was suddenly horny? That she wanted to find a clearing somewhere and bloody fuck like her nasty friends or, if Guy refused, simply pin him against a tree somewhere and suck his cock? She needed him inside her, one way or another, needed the comfort of that wet and awkward act to confirm that some things were as they should be, and there was happiness to be found.

  “I can’t stop thinking of Chris, and I want to scream,” he said, and unknowingly shamed her. “He must be so scared. And my mom, God.”

  “Your dad will take care of them.”

  “I know,” he said, his eyes losing focus. He blinked several times, and she saw that he was crying. They pulled each other close and stayed that way until Guy told her that they should catch up.

  Daniel and the others were in the clearing, laughing over something. Richard rubbed his calves, and Kimberly was doing squats.

  “Damn good workout,” Guy said.

  “I’m used to it,” Sam said, putting his fists on his hips like Superman.

  “I’m not,” Richard said, sitting down in the dirt.

  The curtains in the window of the cabin to their right fluttered. Colleen opened her mouth to say something, and her words became a scream. The door leading into the center cabin burst open, and a man with a shotgun rushed at them.

  “Get down,” he screamed, sweeping the shotgun left and right and kicking Richard in the face. Head low, Sam walked over to the man and stood behind him, pulling the cowboy revolver from his belt. “Get the fuck down, all of you.”

  Colleen screamed and Kimberly screamed, and though she held onto Guy, strong hands pried her away and pressed her to the ground. Richard rolled in the dirt, his hands pressed to his face, blood flowing between his fingers.

  More men appeared, each brandishing a shotgun, and Colleen screamed and screamed, and someone punched her in the stomach. She tasted dirt and rolled onto her side and squeezed her eyes shut.

  “God,” someone screamed. It might have been Guy or it might have been Richard, but it wasn’t Daniel, she knew that much, because she heard him crying. Kimberly’s squeals became pained and inhuman, and their attackers laughed and taunted and roared with animal pleasure.

  “Hold him down,” someone said, and Colleen heard what sounded like the hollow-metal thud.

  “No, no, please—” It sounded like Guy.

  “Why the hell are you—” Daniel.

  “…going to fucking kill you, you son—” It was Guy.

  “Going to what, man?”

  “Whose is he?”

  “Right there.” This sounded like Samson.

  Kimberly’s screams crumbled into sharp, muffled gasps, and now someone’s fist balled into Colleen’s hair and wrenched her head back.

  “Open your eyes.” A growl.

  “You’re going to kill me?”

  The whoof of exhalation that could only come from a blow to the stomach, and still Daniel wept somewhere, between blows.

  “He said open your eyes.” Hot breath in her ears and large hands on her face, fingers prying open her eyes. She jerked her head left and right, thrashing, slamming it backward in the hopes of busting a lip or smashing a nose. No luck, and through the tear-streaked flicker of her eyelids she saw two men pinning Guy to the side of the truck while another knelt before him, a shotgun resting in the dirt beside him.

  “Come on,” someone said, and: “Wow, man, I’m impressed.” And: “God, no, please no, please God…” And: “No, no. Please, no. No, no, no.”

  Colleen squeezed her eyes shut and screamed until her screams became one with the screams of those around her. The fist in her hair tightened, and she was lifted and dragged forward.

  “Open your eyes,” someone said.

  “Open them, you cunt.”

  She did. Shriveled and pale, Guy’s genitals were inches from her face. She could smell him. She looked up, and through her tears found his face, his eyes.

  He tried to say something, but it was little more than an animal growl. Tears streamed down his face. The cords stood out in his neck. He struggled. He was strong. They were stronger.

  “Put it in your mouth.”

  She
screamed, and her face was thrust into Guy’s crotch.

  “Do it.”

  She opened her mouth, took him in, sobbing around Guy’s limp penis.

  “Do it,” the voice screamed, the fist at the back of her head a knot of pain.

  She closed her lips around Guy and worked him, gasping. Unseen, those around her yelped and hooted. Someone screamed, raw and incoherent and insane.

  “Why?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s it.”

  “Stop stop stop.”

  “Open your fucking eyes.” Again her eyelids were pried open. Guy’s penis was small and pitiful, his testicles tight and close to his body. A large hand reached in and seized Guy’s penis, tugging it forward. A blade flashed, and Guy roared in pain and someone laughed and Colleen screamed and screamed, her eyes clenched, her mind collapsing.

  One of them smeared something warm and wet across her face, tried to press it into her mouth, but she locked her jaw and wrenched her head away. Another blow to the stomach, and she gasped and one of their attackers crammed something—god, oh god it can’t be it can’t be—into her mouth. She wretched and gagged and it fell from her mouth and onto the ground between her splayed fingers.

  A heavy boot pushed her to the ground. Colleen rolled, her head lolling, the stink of blood in her nose, her mouth filled with its taste. Guy’s dick lay curled and bloody and dirt-speckled on the ground. She frantically smeared blood from her lips.

  And then thunder. Thunder and blood, and one of their attackers crumpled to the ground, a ragged hole in his chest. She rolled and clambered to her feet, and then someone was on her, hammering her back and neck and face and head. She struggled, but not for long.

  Nine

  He rolled through the small business district of Citrus Heights, eyes forward, trying to ignore what he saw. There were dead bodies in the streets, both walking and strewn across the road in tatters. Eyes forward, on the road, and a dead woman with a bloody smear for a face lifted its mouth from the open belly of a large dog to watch him pass. A bearded man clutching a small pistol walked toward her. Reggie rolled on, barely heard the pop of the gun behind him.

  A heap of bodies burned in the parking lot of an In-n-Out, and a group of armed men clustered around a pick-up truck, stuffing their faces with burgers and fries, knocking them down with sodas. They tried to flag him down. Maybe they just wanted to ask him something—to see if he’d passed through Sacramento, perhaps, or if he knew just how bad things were on the interstate. Maybe they wanted to know what he was doing in their town. Maybe they wanted to pull a nigger from his truck and add him to the pyre. Who knew?

  He wasn’t taking any chances. He kept on keeping on, and no one followed him. He wondered if maybe he should have taken a chance and stopped. He was getting hungry.

  A line of abandoned cars and trucks blocked his path to the highway, stopped him in his tracks and cranked his heartbeat up a notch or two. His sideview mirrors were empty for now. If this were a trap, it had been abandoned. He contemplated pushing through, but the blockade was two cars deep, and he did not want to get stuck. He had no choice but to leave the main road. He consulted his map, and when he looked up, he saw three dead bodies walking toward his truck. One of them, an older man with a sunken stomach and a black and bulging post-mortem erection, was naked. One, a child still wearing a baseball hat, dragged its twisted right foot behind. Its small right arm dangled and spun from a thin strand of gristle. The third, trundling up the rear, was an obese man wearing only a pair of shorts. His enormous belly had been ripped open. Yellow fat and purple innards bulged.

  Reggie turned left, slowly passing the dead bodies, which lifted their arms in an unintentional display of supplication, slack-jawed peasants begging for even a scrap of moldy bread. The small business district fell behind him. He passed an abandoned gas station. A hand-lettered sign taped to the pumps declared:

  OUT OF GAS

  PRAY TO JESUS!

  He consulted his map once more.

  “Shit and fuck,” he said, tracing a finger along Hazel Avenue. He was approaching the American River. There were two small bridges between him and Highway Fifty. If one of them was closed or cut off, he just might be fucked.

  “Oh, well,” he said “Cross ‘em when I get to ‘em.” He turned right into a neighborhood comprised of small ranch style houses. Barring any unexpected obstructions, this was the quickest route to Hazel Avenue, which would take him south to a place called Nimbus, where he’d get onto Fifty.

  Half the neighborhood had flown the coop, if the empty driveways were any indication. Aside from a few smashed windows, there was no sign of the wholesale looting and pillaging mentioned on the radio. Curtains parted and frightened faces watched his passage. A few folks had been smart enough to nudge their cars or trucks right up against their houses, barricading their front doors while making a quick escape easy.

  He turned on the radio, caught the tail-end of a report from the Middle East. Over the past twelve hours, the powder keg of Israel had erupted. Within days, someone from within the PLO was reported to have said, Israel would be no more, and her people would be killing themselves upon the sands where the land met the sea. Gerald Ford said that Israel’s allies would not forsake her in this time of trouble. When asked about Vietnam, he was terse: complete withdrawal from Vietnam was possible within weeks. American troops were needed right here, in the cities and streets of the United States of America. No one challenged the contradiction inherent in his words.

  “Mother fuckers,” Reggie said, not entirely sure who he was cursing, and that’s when he saw the kid. Just a chubby white kid riding a yellow bicycle with blue wheels up and down the deserted street. It was a girl’s bike with a banana seat. Sparkly tassels hung from the handlebars.

  As Reggie passed him, the kid looked up and flashed a listless smile. Ignoring the guy and his dog on the interstate had been one thing, but this?

  “Dammit,” he said, bringing the truck to a halt. He looked around. The coast was clear. He watched the kid approach the truck in his side-view mirror.

  Beneath Reggie’s window, the kid brought the bike to a halt in style, braking hard with his right foot and planting his left foot on the ground, his back wheel skidding a blue half-circle across the concrete.

  “Nice move, kid,” Reggie said, rolling down his window. “Now what the hell are you doing?”

  “Riding my bike.”

  “I can see that, but what the hell are you doing? Don’t you know what’s going on?”

  “Yeah,” the kid said, and Reggie could see from the look in his eyes that he wasn’t very smart. He looked dull and stupid, like the kind of kid who would grow up to kick his dog and punch his wife, and Reggie cursed himself for stopping. To hell with this dumb white boy. He had a daughter to get home to. “Dead people are coming back to life.”

  “Right.” Reggie said, opening the door and getting out. “So why are you out here on your bike?”

  “I don’t know.” The kid shrugged. His eyes fell to the pistol at Reggie’s hip. “I guess I wanted to see one for myself.”

  “Have you?”

  “Yeah,” the kid said. “There’s one down at the end of the road. It’s trying to get up. I think a car hit it. Its guts are all smooshed out.” He made a face.

  “There are more back that way,” Reggie said, tossing a thumb over his shoulder.

  “You use that yet?” The kid’s eyes were still on Reggie’s Colt.

  “No,” Reggie said, looking around. “You should be home right now.”

  “I guess so,” the kid said. “Do you think you will?”

  “Will what?”

  “Use your gun.”

  “Jesus, kid, I don’t know.” Now it was his turn to shrug. Why the hell was he wasting his time like this? “Probably.”

  “You should go down the road,” the kid said, turning in place, looking back toward the end of the road. “Thataway. Shoot the thing. It’s pretty sad.
”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “Can I come see?”

  “That something you want to see?”

  “I dunno.” The kid scrunched up his face. “I guess so.”

  “You don’t,” Reggie said. “It’s nothing you ever want to see. Where’s your house?”

  “Back there,” the kid said, tossing his thumb over his shoulder in obvious imitation of Reggie.

  “Are your parents home?”

  “My dad moved out last year,” the kid said. Somewhere far away, a machine gun ripped through someone or something. The kid winced, crouching.

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “She left.” The kid stared into space, his eyes going distant. More gunfire. The kid snapped back, looked Reggie in the eye. “She drinks a lot. She ran out of Blue Nun. She went to the store to get more.”

  “Jesus,” Reggie said. “How long ago?”

  “You shouldn’t use the Lord’s name in vain, mister.”

  “How long ago?”

  “I dunno. This morning. She told me to stay inside, but…” He shrugged.

  “Damn it,” Reggie said.

  “You think she’s dead?”

  “I’m going to take you home, okay?”

  “You think she’s dead?”

  “I don’t know, kid. I’m just going—you got a name?”

  “Steven.”

  “I’m just going to take you home, Steven, and then I’m going to go. My little girl is waiting for me.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Seven,” Reggie said, remembering the last time he spoke to her. The radio said that the phones were out across most of the country, but suddenly he had to try. At the very least he had to try. “How old are you?”

  “Eleven. What’s her name?”

  “Nefertiti.”

  “Weird name,” the kid said, and looked instantly sorry. “I mean, it’s kind of pretty.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Let’s get you home.”

  “I just live a few blocks that way,” the kid said, flapping his hand in the direction of his house. “I can get there.”

  “I’m sure you can,” Reggie said. “But I’m going to take you, anyway. And you’re gonna stay inside. Give me this.” Reggie put his hands on the bike’s handlebars.